Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In a gratuitous manner; without cost to the recipient, freely.
  • Without sufficient cause or reason: as, a principle gratuitously assumed.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb Freely; in the manner of a gift, without being earned.
  • adverb In a manner not demanded by the circumstances, without reason, justification, cause, or proof.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb in an uncalled-for manner

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From gratuitous +‎ -ly.

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Examples

  • I wouldn’t put them in gratuitously, either, for no particular reason.

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » Interview with Jules Watson, Part 2 2009

  • I don't think Canadians buy into the idea of gratuitously being offensive.

    Archive 2006-03-01 ALW 2006

  • I don't think Canadians buy into the idea of gratuitously being offensive.

    What Plagues The Liberal Party ALW 2006

  • Being in a country where many don't speak English, you can drop the f-word gratuitously when you are angry enough.

    Blogbot - forsiden 2009

  • The major local daily in Toronto, the Toronto Star, says it doesn't believe in "gratuitously" labelling people by ethnic origin.

    America's top cop tells Canadians the truth about crime and race: Steve Sailer 2006

  • However, giving Earthlife opportunity to write "gratuitously" to the consultants did not constitute a hearing.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2004

  • And frankly, given that Keyes has exactly no chance of winning, it just seems kind of gratuitously cruel to invade her privacy.

    Keyes’s Daughter 2004

  • Yet it did not enter into the composition of his religious faith, and this shows that his religious faith, though entirely free from suspicion of insincerity or ostentatious assumption, was like deism in so many cases, whether rationalistic or emotional, a kind of gratuitously adopted superfluity, not the satisfaction of a profound inner craving and resistless spiritual necessity.

    Rousseau (Volume 1 and 2) John Morley 1880

  • In our present state we may drink of the stream, then we shall drink at the Fountain. freely -- Greek, "gratuitously": the same Greek as is translated, "(They hated Me) without a cause," Joh 15: 25.

    Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible 1871

  • A Town Court judge in Saratoga County, N.Y., has been censured for "gratuitously" invoking his judicial status when asking prison officials to confiscate documents from an inmate.

    Law.com - Newswire 2010

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